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TORONTO -- Instinctual. That's Chad Owens. Put a football in the man's hands and he's capable of pulling lightning down out of the sky. Settling underneath a punt he can go off on some crazy riff like Robin Williams doing standup, leaving his audience gasping with delight.

So the idea of being pinned down, boxed in, to a carved-in-stone acceptance speech for Thursday's Gibson's Finest CFL Player Awards must, well, give him the cold sweats.

"I mean, you know, yeah, of course you want to win. But is that the main goal? No. The game's what matters. I guess we'll see what happens (tonight).

"And I'm sure if the time comes, I'll say the right things."

The Flyin' Hawaiian is, after all, awfully fluent in improvisation.

Both he and his rival for Most Outstanding Player, Calgary Stampeders' record-shattering tailback Jon Cornish, are grand entertainers.

What may turn the MOP voting tide in one man's favour is that Owens just happens to be more all-purpose than Lysol cleaner, leading the league in both receiving (1,348 yards) and returning (2,510) to break the combined yardage record of mentor, ex-Argo and all-around swell egg Pinball Clemons. That carries a large amount of cache in CFL circles.

"When the lights come on ... I flip the switch," Owens said, stumped for a more definitive explanation of his explosiveness (the Stamps can only help to hem him in the way the media gang did beside the juice dispenser at Wednesday's East Division breakfast availability). I know there's the saying 'You can't expect to flip the switch on on game day.' But on game day, everyone has an extra boost of energy, of adrenalin. There's where I get my free time, my alone time, my time away from everything -- when I'm on that field."

Not to downplay Cornish's very generous accomplishments, and fully acknowledging his bias in the conversation, Argos' QB Ricky Ray knows who'd get his vote.

"I mean, Chad just does so much for us. Just breaking the record for all purpose yards is a pretty cool accomplishment. I've been lucky enough to have a front-row seat all year.

"He's a superstar. He just does so many things well. You see how much we use him as a team. It's funny, when we're game-branding, deciding what plays to use, his name's the first one to come up just because he can do so much.

"A good run game definitely helps out, but when you can throw a five-yard pass to Chad Owens and he takes it 70 yards for a touchdown or gets you down in scoring territory ... Or you look at a couple weeks ago, I'm standing on the sidelines, they punt the ball and he takes it into the end zone.

"That's seven points and I didn't have to do anything."

What amazes Argos GM Jim Barker is the durability of Owens, who has the ball in his possession and in finds himself in harm's way so often.

"He never asks off of a kickoff return or a punt return. He's a true, true, tough, tough Hawaiian kid. Some of those Samoans, brother, just tough, tough, tough.

"In terms of comparables, the closest guy I can think of would be Pinball. And Pinball's taken Chad under his wing, in terms of how to handle the media, handle the community. When he broke Pinball's record, watching Pinball lift him into the air ... it was genuine. He's like Pinball's son."

Barker puts Owen's rise in the receiving ranks down to a couple things: A) the presence of Ray to put the ball where it needs to be; and B) A burgeoning amount of patience. Returners routinely lack the temperament to run routes. Their whole thing is finding a gap and exploiting it, immediately.

"You look at returners and they're rarely great receivers," continued Barker. "Why? Because receiving is about patience. Returning is about making a decision and 'Go!' Planting a foot and making a decision. But he and Ricky have really developed a rapport. Ricky's helped his game so much."

Being an instinctual animal, Chad Owens may not have a word-for-word acceptance speech prepared should tonight the expected come to pass, but you can bet he'll be as light on his feet in a tux as he is in double blue.

Trust him to make the right read on a ballroom carpet every bit as expertly as he can on a stadium's.

"For me," Owens emphasized, "it's about the right time. The right quarterback. The right system. I feel fortunate to be in the position I'm in. Am I surprised? Well, I'm extremely humbled and honoured, very blessed, to know that, man, dreams can come true.

"When you really want something, and you want it, it can happen. And it's happened this year for me.

"But it didn't just happen because I set the goal and worked toward. It happened because the teammates I have, the coaching staff I have, Ricky Ray, being blessed to stay healthy.

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